


Carry On Wayward Son

by Lyrstzha



Category: Angel: the Series, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Daddy Issues, Dysfunctional Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-06-10
Updated: 2009-06-10
Packaged: 2017-10-05 15:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyrstzha/pseuds/Lyrstzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At a couple of crossroads in their lives, two young men with demon blood and daddy issues meet in a bar.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Carry On Wayward Son

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SullenSiren (lorax)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lorax/gifts).



Sam isn't sure about driving all the way down to L.A. for the weekend just to go club hopping, even if he _does_ have a good fake ID to get him in. But he likes Jess and her roommate Veronica a lot, and they're going along, so he puts his books away and agrees. He needs to de-stress from his freshman spring finals before summer session starts anyway. His dubiousness is totally vindicated when both Jess and Veronica grab some of the guys and take immediately to the dance floor at the first club they visit, leaving Sam alone with those frat assholes, Jeremy and Eric. It seems like a good idea to go hang out at the bar and sulk and maybe make some _new_ friends.

"You", Connor slurs thickly, blinking at his newfound-friend Sam over his eigth beer, "don't know what daddy isshems...ishers...eschews _are_. Didja fall in love with _your_ father's belidded? Um...believed....belillied....belivid...woman?"

"Well. No," Sam admits, more accustomed to beer and therefore a little more sober, not to mention only on his sixth. "And also, _eww_. But mine kept risking my life."

"Ha!" Connor barks derisively. "S'nothing. Mine killed my foster father." He frowns. "Or maybe not. But he wanted to."

"Might wanna clear that up," Sam advises as he takes another sip of liquid oblivion, only a bit of snideness around the edges of his tone that goes completely over Connor's head anyway. "_My_ dad wouldn't let me have a life of my own. Just gave me orders like I was some kinda soldier, and then wrote me off for good when I wanted to have something for myself."

Connor tries to shake his head, but it makes him sway so hard it looks like a strange dance instead. "My father's _evil_," he proclaims with all the gravity he can muster, which would be more if he wasn't holding onto the bar to keep from falling off of his stool.

"Sometimes I used to say that about mine," Sam sighs. "But my brother would always tell me to quit being such a drama queen and remember what _real_ evil looked like."

Connor frowns and raises his finger like he wants to make a point, but he gets momentarily distracted by his own hand. He shakes it from side to side a couple of times and pokes it with the fingers of his other hand, as if checking to make sure that it is, in fact, really his.

"No," he says suddenly, looking back up so sharply that he startles Sam into inhaling the beer he'd been drinking. "No," he says again firmly, loud enough to be clear over both Sam's coughing and the music. "I mean really evil. Like demons, and...and...demons."

"Demons?" Sam gasps out hoarsely, eyes still watering but suddenly much more alert.

"Yeah. My dad, he's evil like that." Connor somehow manages to look both smug and tragic. "See? So much worse than yours."

"So," Sam says, obviously trying for casual, but only managing shifty, "Like, really a demon? Hellfire and damnation kinda demon?"

"Well. Not so much with the fire right now. Except in the sun, I guess."

"The sun?" Sam is abruptly less slouched against the bar and a whole lot more upright. "Your dad catches fire in the sunlight?"

"Sure. Or with regular fire. But almost everybody catches fire with regular fire, I guess. Except salamons...salamanners...sala_manders_. And things like that." Connor slides precariously down a little further on his stool.

Sam, on the other hand, is totally tensed now. "Salamanders," he mutters thoughtfully, almost silently. He narrows his eyes at Connor, darting his glance down over the kid's wiry frame and the callouses on his hands. "Your dad," he finally says more loudly. "He wouldn't happen to have, say, really sharp teeth and drink blood, would he?"

Connor turns his head where it rests on the bar to squint up at Sam. "You know him?"

"No, but you know," Sam tells him in a painstakingly bland tone, "I think my dad might like to meet your dad."

"Wha for?" slurs Connor in honest confusion.

"Um." Sam blinks rapidly, the wheels of his brain almost visible as they turn frantically. "Male bonding?" he finally offers.

"Your dad wants to tie mine up?" Connor looks even more confused.

"No!" Sam cries, far too quickly and emphatically to be credible. "Course not. Um. Just...um."

"Cause I'd get that," Connor remarks, as if he didn't hear Sam's denial. "Sometimes I wanna tie him up, or maybe stake him. Or tie him up and leave him so long he wishes I'd staked him. Huh." he finishes thoughtfully, frowning as he ponders the idea. "That could work."

"Yeah, okay, I need to make a quick phone call. Be right back." Sam steps into a quieter corner of the bar, leaving Connor slumped on his stool and making small staking motions with his right hand, a thoughtful expression still on his dazed face.

Sam presses the number 3 and then 'talk' on his cell, then stabs his finger down hard on the 'end' button immediately. He presses 2 and stares at his phone for a long moment, finger hovering over the 'talk' button. Finally, he slowly presses 'end' instead with a strange expression twisting across his face. He passes his fingertip over the 2 again—not a press, but rather a slight whisper of touch. When Sam looks back up at the bar at last, he startles at Connor's empty stool.

"The guy who was sitting here," Sam says to the bartender. "Where'd he go?"

The bartender shrugs. "Took off. Asked the quickest way to the waterfront, though."

Sam rushes outside and looks around the empty parking lot, but there's no sign of Connor. He takes a few steps towards the waterfront, but then he stops. He blows his breath out in a sharp, cleansing sigh, and heads back inside.

On the drive to the motel they're staying at for the weekend, Jess asks Sam about his friend, but he just shrugs and tells her that guys like that aren't his problem. He doesn't say 'anymore', and she doesn't hear the space it leaves in his mouth.

 

Sam needs more stress relief after his spring finals in 2004. He's only just finally settled on law school, and he really needs to celebrate his new sense of direction in life. When Jess suggests driving down to L.A. for a weekend of partying again, Sam is happy to agree. He's all but forgotten the club they visited last time until they actually walk in. He falters just inside the door, suddenly swamped by memory. Jess laughs at his hesitation, assuming it's because of his usual unease with dancing, and detaches herself from his side after a quick kiss and the extraction of a promise to fulfill his boyfriend-ly duty with a few dances later. Sam heads to the bar, only to stop dead as soon as he reaches it.

"Hey! You again," Sam claps a hand on Connor's shoulder, not even sure himself if it's meant as greeting or restraint. "Long time, no see. How've you been?"

Connor blinks at him, frowning blankly for a minute before his expression clears. "Oh, hey, hi. Sam, right? I'm fine. You?"

"Fine, fine." Sam's eyes narrow assessingly. "What are you up to these days?"

Connor gives him a half-shrug. "Nothing much. Just, y'know, school and stuff."

"That's great," Sam says quickly, before Connor can say anything else. "And how are things with your dad?"

"Oh...no. No," Connor says, as if Sam asked him a yes or no question. "Listen, when we met, I know I said some pretty crazy things about him. I was really drunk, and I was just babbling all kinds of insane shit, okay?'

"Uh huh," Sam mutters, looking suspicious.

"Blitzed out of my mind, seriously," Connor insists. "My dad is really all right. Kinda overprotective sometimes, maybe, and really clueless about a lot of stuff. But not evil."

"So, the staking and catching fire in the sunlight was just...?"

Connor gives an exaggerated grimace. "I can be such an emo drunk sometimes. I can't believe I said all that." He gives Sam a what-can-you-do shake of his head. "You must have thought I was a total whackjob."

Sam matches Connor's veneer of self-deprecating rue with his own front of amused sympathy. He grins a little, and comes back with, "Maybe just a bit, man."

"And that's how I know I should quit at two," Connor replies, gulping down the last of the mug of beer he's holding and thunking the empty glass down on the bar decisively. "No, thanks," he says to the bartender's inquiring eyebrow. He drops a few bills down on the bar and rises to go, extending his hand toward Sam as he does. "Good to see you again, Sam," he starts, but falls abruptly silent as his hand touches Sam's.

They both freeze there—hands clasped, eyes locked—something neither one understands echoing back and forth in their contact, some congruence of the blood they only recognize instinctively keeping them still. Something hums low and dark in the veins of their joined hands, all the blood rushing to the surface every place their skin meets as if it's trying to converge.

"Your dad," Connor says abruptly in a thick voice. "How are things with him?"

Sam has to clear his throat before he can get anything out. "I, um. I haven't seen him since I moved to Palo Alto," he stammers, totally thrown and still dazed, but not sure why.

"You should," Connor tells him, finally drawing his hand back. "Family's where you live. Call him."

"I guess. Maybe," Sam mumbles, glancing down at his hand with a quizzical frown.

"Just do it. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about." He gives Sam a faint, wry smile and a shrug. "Dads have a way of doing stupid shit in the name of protecting us, is all. But we'd better forgive them, because we're gonna do the same shit when it's our turn." His smile goes a bit brittle around the edges, but it's still an honest thing that is what it looks like, even if it's more besides.

"Yeah," Sam says, without being sure if he means it or not. "I'll think about it."

"Good to hear." Connor's smile goes a little warmer and steadier. "But I gotta be going now. Good luck, and I'll see you around, okay?"

"Sure," Sam answers automatically. "Good seeing you."

Connor turns to go, but stops suddenly a few steps away to look back over his shoulder. "Oh yeah, Sam? There's supposed to be a hell of a storm tonight. Really biblical with the flooding and all, I think. You guys should get back on the road to Palo Alto before it gets too late. Just in case."

Sam frowns at him. "I didn't hear anything about that on the news."

"Yeah, well, I got it from a reliable source." Connor shakes his head a bit. "And better safe than sorry, right?"

"Right," Sam agrees reflexively, watching Connor until the door swings closed behind him, flexing the fingers of his right hand slowly. He's not sure what to make of the strange singing in his palm that resonates up through his veins, but he collects Jess and convinces her to head home early anyway.

 

The next morning, watching news footage of the mass destruction in L.A. before they've even gotten out of bed, Jess gasps, "Oh god, we were almost...if you hadn't gotten that headache, we could have..." She swallows the rest of her sentence down with a choking sound, as if saying the words aloud might change history.

"Just lucky, I guess," Sam murmurs numbly.

"Lucky," Jess breathes, throwing her arms around Sam and holding on tightly, half relieved and half horrified.

Sam curls obligingly around her, but only after he shifts her carefully into the circle of his left arm, leaving his right hand to sit open on the bed beside his thigh where he can keep on eye on it. He tells himself that it doesn't still echo, doesn't still spark and tingle with a familiarity that he doesn't consciously understand.

But Sam is still young, and earnestly wearing a disguise of normalcy, and he will tell himself many things before the day comes when he is ready to shed that mask for good.


End file.
